7 AUGUST 2024
Father Terrance Klein officiated at a funeral service for Pat Kasselman at Minnis Funeral Chapel.
Pat Kasselman: Finding Heaven on Earth
by Fr Terrance Klein
Pat seemed to know that this life, despite all the work, could include a bit of heaven and its joys. Indeed, to look for these and to enjoy them is part of what it means to prepare ourselves for the life to come.
Date: 8/7/24
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Finding a Bit of Heaven on Earth |
Pat Kasselman |
Father Terrance Klein |
7.VIII.2024 |
1st John 3: 1-2 Matthew 11: 25-30
Pat died at the age of ninety-one after a short illness, attended by his wife and family. He lived his entire life in his home. For many of us, that’s the definition of a happy, blessed life.
That might prompt the question, what was the secret to his success? Listening to his family—and you must do that attentively because none of them speak loudly or say much—there does seem to be a hint of Pat’s strength. He believed strongly in finding a bit of heaven on earth.
Pat grew up on a farm south of Ellinwood, one of Ben and Nanny’s three boys and four girls. He was closest to his brother Larry, but even as a child, Pat was often to be found by himself. He seemed to learn early that the only way to know what’s happening in your life is to step back from it. Or to put it another way, we can only expect to see our savior when we make space for him.
Come to me,
All you who labor and are burdened,
And I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you and learn from me,
For I am meek and humble of heart,
And you will find rest for yourselves.
For my yoke is easy,
And my burden light (Mt 11: 28-30).
Pat was a hard-working man. Between his return from the U.S. Air Force and his retirement, he worked in oil fields for more than forty years. But even during his workday, Pat knew how to find a bit of heaven. Kevin shared this memory:
I remember going to work with dad. He had a well, which he called “the back up well” because he had to back in or back out. There was also the “Eatin’ well” because that’s where we would eat lunch under a shade tree. I remember eating lunch there a lot in summer when I rode with dad. I’m guessing those names for the wells might be something he and Kyle named before me.
If you’re going to prepare yourself for heaven, you need to make some space for it on earth. That’s the purpose of Mass each Sunday, to make some room for heaven on earth. That wasn’t Pat’s way. He chose hunting and fishing, family vacations, and shady sites for lunch.
Central Kansas is dotted with spots where Pat hunted or fished, but for vacations, you’d need the continent to map out the places Pat explored with his family. They might be rather tightly packed into a four-door sedan, but the places they got to go! In retirement, Pat did the same with his grandkids, even if they didn’t journey farther than Nebraska or the Big Well in Greensburg.
Saint Augustine once said that the Church has two great seasons, Lent and Easter. They each remind us of two stages in life, one earthly and the other heavenly. The second follows the first. He wrote:
Because there are these two periods of time – the one that now is, beset with the trials and troubles of this life, and the other yet to come, a life of everlasting serenity and joy – we are given two liturgical seasons, one before Easter and the other after. The season before Easter signifies the troubles in which we live here and now, while the time after Easter…signifies the happiness that will be ours in the future. What we commemorate before Easter is what we experience in this life; what we celebrate after Easter points to something we do not yet possess.
Pat seemed to know that this life, despite all the work, could include a bit of heaven and its joys. Indeed, to look for these and to enjoy them is part of what it means to prepare ourselves for the life to come.
I think of the salutation he would use as guests left his home. “Thank you for coming and come again.” Pat thought of his home as a place to receive guests and be renewed by them. Maureen Stroebel wrote that her husband Scott “has many fond memories hanging out at the Kasselman home over the years...”
Even at the end of a long and blessed life, we don’t forget that Pat needed a savior. So, we ask the Lord to forgive his sins and to lead him into the shade of rest.
Saint John reminds us that we cannot truly picture heaven. It exceeds the power of our imaginations, but he insisted that to know the strength of what we sometimes call the “ties that bind” is to know something of what is to come.
Beloved, we are God’s children now;
What we shall later be has not yet been revealed.
We do know that when it is revealed
We shall be like him,
For we shall see him as he is (1 Jn 3: 2).
Pat might not be able to describe heaven, but as someone who took time to dearly love his wife, his family, and his dogs, he knew what mattered, knew how to prepare himself for what is to come. And that’s a quality to imitate: finding heaven by looking for it here on earth.
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